Posted by james c on February 27, 1999 at 06:18:41:
I'm gonna have to vent a bit here, so strap in. I just got over my seventh headache of the day (a personal record for me) and I need to complain a bit to some people who understand a.k.a. YOU GUYS. I've been chronic now for over six months with an average of 4 attacks a day. I haven't had a single day without an attack for over three months now. My life has come to an absolute halt. I'm afraid to leave the house because I can't deal with having attacks in public. My social life has been steadily disintegrating. I hardly see my friends anymore, and when I do I feel like all I have to talk about is my CH because it's the only significant thing going on in my life. My girlfriend dumped me (on Valentine's Day no less) saying that I wasn't fulfilling her emotional needs. Not that I blame her, I have about as much emotional support to give as a corpse at this point. I feel completely bored and frustrated because I've been so unproductive over the past months. I finished school almost a year ago now and I want to start working on a career, but instead I get to spend my days attached to an O2 tank. I've decided that I'm going to get surgery, but this has proven to be a very complicated matter. No one seems to be able to agree on what procedure would be best for me. Last week I went in to the hospital to see a headache specialist (who claims to have released a CD with three songs about headaches and one specifically about CH) who was in town giving a lecture series. He presented my case in front of a group of residents. At that point I was considering getting a rhyzotomy, but the specialist I sow thought that microvascular decompression might be a better option for someone my age. Apparently my story made quite an impact on the residents because they were phoning my neurologist the next day asking if they could get me in to try IV DHE treatment. The specialist I saw talked to another neuro guy from the Mayo clinic who suggested I look into gamma knife surgery. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, but I'm leaning towards the gamma knife. Whew! I just looked up and I've been typing for awhile. Didn't mean to babble on for so long. Thanks for listening.
Have a pain free night,
james c